CB1100 Monthly Photo Challenge

[Gone in 60]

Along with the Whizzers, some guys bring their beach cruisers with 2-cycle engines, usually the $150 Ebay kits. I have a hankering to build one of those...

Continuing the "birth of Cars and Coffee" story, sometime in the early 2000s, guys with newer Ferraris and Lambos started showing up at Donut Derelicts, but were not made welcome by the oldsters and their GTOs and Tri-5 Chevys. So, the exotic guys started their own early Saturday show at Crystal Cove, further down the coast near Laguna Beach, in a very high-zoot shopping center. Show up in a Mustang? You'd be shown the parking lot. However, these guys made too much noise revving their Italian V-12s for guys standing along Pacific Coast Highway with cameras when the cars left, angering the residents in their zillion-dollar ocean-view homes surrounding the shopping center.

Someone who worked at Ford's PAG (Premier Automotive Group, the headquarters for Land Rover, Aston Martin, Volvo and Jaguar) in Irvine stepped up and said "Look, we've got a huge parking lot in Irvine that's empty on Saturday mornings. Everyone is welcome, no matter what kind of special car you have. Just behave and don't do anything stupid." Soon, over 500 cars and at least 100 motorcycles were showing up, and the PAG building's giant parking garage could be used for spectators. They started offering coffee and donuts, and the first Cars and Coffee was born.

It was an awesome gathering. Dan Gurney was a regular participant, as his shop was nearby in Santa Ana. He had sold his original run of 36 Honda-powered Alligator motorcyles, and was working on the prototype of the second-generation Alligator which was powered by an S&S V-twin. It was not uncommon to see him arrive on the prototype and park it among the other bikes, showing off whatever new fairing piece or fender they had just rendered in carbon fiber. Here was a very distinguished, very tall older gentleman showing off a custom motorcycle. People thought "Is that.... Dan Gurney? Nah, can't be."